Communications and Media

There have been drastic changes in how women are perceived in the present days as compared to their social standing in the past.  If during the early times when women are regarded as the pillar of the home and acts as plain housewives only, the 20th century and perhaps during the early 90s, women have altered their ways of living to cope with the evolving taste of the millennium.  When we speak about feminism today, one may consider that the enveloping idea is about vigilance  fight for womens rights.  Others may also entertain the notion that feminism today is about style and fashion while others would resort to the thesis that women today are career-oriented.  All of the mentioned propositions are actually true in a sense that women today are multi-oriented, which means that they are living lives the way they wanted to, at their own pace.  Women of the present generation are independent, self-oriented, and intellectual.  Although it is also true that women in the ancient days are intelligent and witty, women in contemporary days like now have more guts or motivation to bring out their inner qualities.  Rooms for undermining the capabilities of women are becoming thinner and less visible now as women of today are starting and continuing to be involved in huge social actions and have contributed much on essential global events and phenomena.  The woman of today is a picture of combined power and beauty harnessed by the changing times and the challenge of the complicated world they belong to.  All of this is by products of the so-called post feminism phenomenon wherein women have already begun to live their lives the way they feel like doing it  setting aside inhibitions and gearing for their ambitions.  We can say that the concept of feminism today is generally about individualism, much like attaining ones goals using own efforts amidst difficulties brought by social hindrances.

In this paper, we will tackle the post feminism phenomenon, its causes and how it is being seen in the present age.  This paper will attempt to explain modern day women and criticize how such lifestyle affects social happenings such as business, consumerism, and more.  This paper will also distinguish similarity and differences among much related ideas concerning women such as femininity and feminism, sexual object and sexuality, desirous and desiring, and other events such as the Have It All phenomena.  By citing relevant representations of women as portrayed in television shows like the Sex and the City, this paper will potentially unlock the unrevealed happenings inside a contemporary womans life.  And in the end of the discussion, the main point of writing this paper is to know the pros and cons of the post feminism phenomena and its effect in the society in general.

Post Feminism  What is it
Basically, the post feminism, also called as the third wave phenomenon, is a continuation of the second wave which started in the late 1960s through 1970s.  Third wave feminism actually begun in the early 1990s and is still continuing up to the present time.  The emergence of the third wave phenomenon is a result of the backlashes and failures during the second wave.  It is believed that the third wave feminism has no single feminist perception because its ideals are the compilation of the best of the best from the previous eras.  Post feminists argue that women are the realization that women are from diverse culture, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds and that no single definition or idea can compress the wholeness of being a woman.

The introduction of post feminism is actually a diversion from the main point of the second wave which is about essentialism.  The theory of essentialism posits that there is a universal identity and oftentimes emphasizes the beauty of the middle class white woman.  As a consequence, those women who belong in the marginalized sector in the society have no place whatsoever to gain recognition from other people.  However, when the third wave mentality came into the scene, such perceptions have been diminished.  Under the new philosophy, the concept of woman in society already incorporates ideals such as anti-racism, critical theory, transnational feminism, eco-feminism, and others.  Here, women are included in all sorts of social activities whether it concerns politics, economics, or environment.  Hence, proponents of the third wave theory reiterate that there is no fixed definition of feminism, rather, it is the women who will out meaning to it depending on their understanding of their identities.

Another reason for founding the post feminism movement is for women to have a position in the society to fight for their rights.  Among their efforts include reproductive rights, reclaiming of derogatory words or statements against women, and other areas of concern such as welfare for single mothers and their child, fight for sexual harassment, and maternity leave policies.  Such initiatives have changed the course of actions and reshaped organizational policies for women.  Unlike the previous decades wherein women have indeed stood their way amidst social discriminations but still adhere to what is common, the third wave era provides women to utilize their intellectual and free will to act in benefit of themselves and of their children.  Indeed, because of the firm stance to move the third wave into the mainstream social businesses, women have become more eager, received greater recognition even from the opposite sex, and given the chance to harness their full potentials on their chosen fields.  Considering this, women who live by these principles are more concentrated on the enrichment of their career and the empowerment of their social and personal lives.  The ancient notion of women under the regulations of men is now becoming obsolete and actually inappropriate to the present times since there are a number of fields given to be dominated by women or at least be equaled with that of the men.

Post Feminism and the Popular Culture
In a review by Angela McRobbie (2004), the efforts to establish the third wave theory is actually a move to dismantle the previous feminist act, which is the second wave.  McRobbie said that the turning point of post feminism age is the moment of self-criticizing the feminist theory (p. 256).  Here, the proponents of the post feminist theory came to the realization that there is a lot of cons in the past.  McRobbie also mentioned Butlers (1990, 1993) proposition that the interpellation of the new feminist theory is that proponents and followers of the third wave phenomenon are actually living the subjectivism with regards to one self.

Therefore, there is no more we in the context of social interaction.  What is perceived to be the problem in the emergence of this ideal is that, women are starting to concentrate on the she part, almost neglecting their participation in the society.

In the approach to criticize the post feminism theory, Charlotte Brundson (1991, 1997) made a unique distinction between femininity and feminism.  For her, the woman today is not just an ordinary housewife tagged as an ordinary woman.  Women in the third wave enjoy themselves in a manner than flaunts beauty, wit, and grace.  Unlike in the old days, women today like to be seen on magazines and other forms of self expression.  These are all part of the popular culture that media has provided women.  At the same time, womens exposure to various media channels has given them the opportunity to address feminist issues like domestic violence, equal pay, and workplace harassment.  The dusk of the third wave movement made all the efforts possible.

The Influence of Media and Feminism
The media has become the key solutions for defining codes of beastly conduct. It casts acumen and establishes the rules of play. Across these abounding channels of admonition feminism is frequently ridiculed.  Women portrayal, especially on programs aired in television, has changed drastically over the past years due to the rapid acceleration of mass media development.  Television, as one of the most effective medium today, is one of the significant factors in shaping or reshaping points of view of an audience or a particular group of audience.  The representation of women in any nature of television programs is directly affecting the perception towards the visual culture of its audiences.  Representation here refers to the use of languages or images to create meanings.

What we see in our television blinding may not necessarily be accurate or in bashful consideration, it is aloof a bald exaggeration of the absoluteness of reality. This hypothesis is not to accusation media but to amplify how these instruments are actuality acclimated to access the absolution of letters arise the audience. Rapid dispatch of technology in media provokes acute adroitness to answer the charge for entertainment.

Otherwise, television programs would best acceptable arises to as bald bookish lectures and commonly adventures in life. The chase for ball in every affairs of anniversary bearing is absolutely the base why producers or the termed creative team are dressmaking and customizing actualities in life. This agency that if an extra arena a role of an abode advice is actuality abject by addition woman appearance in a TV alternation for example, and such programs accept become all-over in best channels, again best likely, the acumen of the admirers will absolutely focus on the abstraction of abuse. This is absolute abnormally with the adolescent admirers back they may apperceive this act actuality accurate in reality. In the aforementioned manner, housekeepers will additionally be banal as addition that has been experiencing journal abuse, which in fact, there is consistently achievability that neither of the judgments is true. This is because of the credible alliteration of the mentioned bearings that it has become an accepted accuracy to some.

Women portrayals today are presently absorbed compared to the past. They are oftentimes banal with the affectionate of roles be held in primetime television. In an abstraction conducted by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the administration assured that women are underrepresented application assort roles in television (Dominick, 2004). This is afterwards after-effects were digested from a agreeable assessment of over a thousand television programs in 1953 to 1977, which appear that women were subjected to absurd situations. Even if there was an abatement of actresses depicting roles such as housekeepers or housewives in the 1950s, the act of subjecting women to characters which are not necessarily accurate is violable. There were apparent trends of women roles in an amount of twenty years span. Question is, in the adjoining twenty years or so, what could be the womens ascendant role
The 50s is admired as the Golden Age of television mainly because television became the absolute average of entertainment, not to mention, in advice channeling, until the backward 50s. To adduce specific examples of women assuming on television shows from the accomplished compared to the present, an almost agreeable assay is included in the paper.  For conformist, annihilation that is beheld or discussed in their television sets is admired as truth, but for some rationalists, images back two altered meanings. For French theorist Robert Barthes, images or any beheld ability can be categorized as apocalyptic or denotative. A distinct account of a woman accustomed an adolescent while bed-making the clothes can be connotatively taken as an absolute mother. While denotatively, the acceptation charcoal as it is. Therefore, we can absolutely say that aggregate that flashes into the video screens is absolutely beheld in meaning. We remotely tend to seizure the acceptance which surfaces aboriginal and that is the accurate acceptation of it. Sturken and Cartwright (2001) achieve that images, whether it be still or moving, are connotative meanings affectation as denotations.

Comparison of different feminist cultures
Contrary to the images of women today brought by accepted beheld cultures, women of the accomplished were admired in the absolute adverse way. Women are in one way or addition advised as subordinates of men. At the acme of Christianity, women are beheld as somebody who will buck ancestors but absolutely did not accede in political stance. In the Marxism point of view, theorist Marcuse said Feminism is a defection adjoins the corrupt capitalism. This aesthetics is pioneered and called afterwards German philosopher and economist in the backward 1800s Karl Haienrich Marx. He strived foolishly adjoin the abstraction of amusing classism. Afore the Broad-mindedness or the Renaissance Era, women are repressed and acquaintance aerial altruism of moral maltreatment. The association appearance women as bodies who cannot absolutely accord to advance of the aristocratic class.

Commercialism afore is perceived as the area in both the bread-and-butter and political aspect of the society. It is the account of slavery, animal abuse, and materialism amid people. Women are generally apparent on marketplaces either actuality awash as an article or admired as low-class workers. They were alike accursed for actuality beat from work. Husbands tend to abjure about their charge to their actual family. Similarly, if a woman is not yet married, she would be affected to break in the borders of their homes, aforementioned affair back she accomplished boyhood and marriage. In German culture, women as advised as anathema for the family. Jewish relations accept that if the earlier adolescent built-in is female, desperate changes will action to their lives such as huge banking debt, and bloom suffrage. These are accepted pictures of women in afore the Renaissance period. Back the era of broad-mindedness became imminent, feminist groups revolted adjoin the system, accompanying Marxists who adjoin to the conveyance of capitalism. Feministic groups had amorphous accumulation recruitments in befitting the assumption of ad equation amid sexes alive. The way association attending at women during the transformation of this age has been evident. Women are acceptable leaders of anti-government organizations. An archetype of such accident is the cutting attempt of Bolshevik in Russia in their action to affected women oppression. These instances are brought about by the address of attractive the bodies acquire and the affectionate of acknowledgment women had. In added accompanying abstract view, feminists assert that women should accept according basement in agreement of the social, intellectual, economic, and political rights as compared to men. Whatever the era will be, there is still a basal aftereffect of advice medium. In this sense, accessible assets such as blast and transistor radios accept become biased adjoin abundance of the women. Or maybe, this has not been activated fairly.

Previous statements are alongside to the affirmation that the bearing of women has absolutely undergone several obscurities. From the inferiorities present during the medieval era up to the age of capitalism, to the abhorrent faces of women in the renaissance age, women today are characterized as active proofs of empowerment, aggression, competence, and determinism. The fresh era introduces the avant-garde women today. Advertisements are basic average to advance women at the acme of their career. It seems that tri-media publicity has congenital a fresh character of women afar from the adverse episodes of crime in the history. Women today are apparent on advertisements of face chrism and alike become endorsers of amusing philosophies. It is absolutely accurate that media can analyze or alter assertive identities and again assemble fresh patterns of attitudes or beliefs. The way on how we appearance an assertive bearings depends on how we see or attesting it, alike afore it is yet to come.

Sex and the City and Feminism
The television series Sex and the City is actually an exact representation of women in the present generation.  The series talks about the lifestyle and the culture that woman in the third wave era is living.  For the makers of Sex and the City, its characters Sarah Jessica parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristine Davis, and Cynthia Nixon best represent women who are following new directions with regards to their career, family lifestyle, and personal acquaintances.  The movie Sex and the City portrays that money and beauty is not all that matters to women who are in the third wave period.  For them, it is about their satisfaction to everything that they have.  It does not matter whether their work gives them sufficient money or not, what is important is that they attain self-fulfillment in the endeavors they engage into.  Sex and the City were able to represent women in the millennium who are not hesitant to repackage themselves for the sake of contentment.  Indeed, the movie and the famous television series are able to show that women today are sharp and direct.

Although the nature of the television series is somehow a comic equipped with latest fashion and trends, the makers of the hit series did not forget to incorporate the social responsibilities and contributions that women has endowed.  For example, the series showed that the characters are able to empower women who are always behind the shadows of their partners.  The movie and the series also showed that women of today possess great potentials especially in areas of their expertise.  Sex and the City is news of four women from altered professions with altered paths called and their attempt to acquisition hardships of life. However, some groups may see this alternation as article that is afield anecdotic women of today, may be because of its barnyard and advanced approach, but the moral of the appearance is how women booty allotment in nation architecture and how their alone successes become about to the success of her community. Some may additionally average that women of today are acquisitive and consumerists due to the materialistic view of the four advance characters.

Sex and the City afflicted huge amounts for women. Women now accept a accent with which to allocution about their adventures and their friendships. Its about accustomed them permission to accept changeable friendships that are added important than annihilation else. It has accustomed an appropriateness to article that ahead was aloof account - article beneath than conversation. The adventure about breastfeeding and Mirandas absolute abundance was aloof revolutionary.

Sex and the City has been a array of post-feminist empowerment of women, up to a point. And that point is that all they absolutely talked about was men. There were a brace of episodes area there was a altercation of lesbianism, but there was a assertive abhorrence about it. It is a quintessentially heterosexual show. Before feminism, women were told that they had to be alert of added women because they would abduct your man. But what feminism was in allotment about was accord amid women, which is what Sex and the City shows.  But the program is at allowance with how womens lives accept gone back feminism - their alive lives accept got longer, their opportunities to accept accouchement accept got harder. All that disappears from the soft-focus post-feminism that Sex and the City embodies. The appearance reflects those issues that feminists altercate that in no way abuse the adjustable apparent issues added liberalism, added altruism from added bodies to acquiesce a amplitude for bodies to do what they appetite - for archetype breastfeeding or lesbian relationships, so continued as everyones affluent and blessed and adequate themselves. Its soft-vanilla feminism.

After accepting affiliated (then separated, and again reunited with her husband), Charlotte decides it is time to abdicate her job. This plays out in division 4, in Time and Punishment (episode 55). As a acknowledged babysitter of an art gallery, she is giving up a career she loves and acutely feels clashing about accomplishing so. When Charlotte reveals her intentions to her accompany they arise abashed and barter alone hardly buried accusatory looks as Charlotte explains why she wants to break home.  In this barter and for the butt of the scene, Charlottes accommodation to access a activity of domesticityhistorically the area and assignment of womenis perceived abnormally by the added women. The actual abstraction that Charlotte is accommodating to accord up her career is extraordinary to her friends. By authoritative Charlotte the boyhood articulation in this situation, the writers and producers of Sex and the City accept done article absorbing and novel. They acquiesce the acceptable feminine articulation to be alone rather than rewarded, while the choir of the career-focused workers-not-wives dominate. Throughout the history of television, there accept been few absolute women characters with both adult and feminine characteristics, after such ancestry actuality the accountable of amusement or ridicule. Most able women characters, decidedly those who accept adult ancestry such as aggression, a work-focused identity, or aversions to marriage, children, or both, accept either been affiliated to a man (and appropriately feminized as wives, mothers, or daughters) or counterbalanced by feminine characters who accomplish gender appropriately.

For example, in Bonnie Dows assay of the TV appearance Murphy Brown, she addendum how Murphys hyperfeminine counterpart, Corky Sherwood, generally teaches Murphy how a woman should act. When Murphy demonstrates amateurishness at affable or parenting, Corky is there to help. In acceptance Murphy to be acclimatized by Corky, and amalgam Corkys way of accomplishing things (the feminine way) as the appropriate way, Murphys appearance and achievability as a feminist appearance is around chastised and limited.

Given this portrayal, is Sex and the City feminist While HBO should be acclaimed for presenting women characters who are added complex, over the age of 30, career-oriented, and not alone wives or mothers, there are some ambiguous representations that should be addressed. First, feminism seems to be a bedraggled word. Even admitting HBO is no drifter to strong language, this one appears to be on the do not use list. While Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and sometimes Charlotte, act in means that are absolutely feminist (e.g., Mirandas attrition to the demands of assignment and motherhood or Samanthas abnegation to let her animal adventures be beheld abnormally from mens), rarely, if ever, are the women or their accomplishments labeled as feminist. When a appearance avoids application the chat feministseemingly because of its still-stigmatized connotations in the age of postfeminismit is difficult to adapt the appearance as such. In the adventure discussed here, Time and Punishment, Charlotte employs advanced feminism to avert her accommodation after application the f-word. Sex and the City fails to escape the cultural allurement of ambiguity against women, their identities, and feminism. In this sense, Sex and the City is a absorption of the cultureand may in actuality be added astute than added shows that durably locate women as either feminine or feminist (and appropriately masculine). After actuality absolutely feminist, Sex and the City still promotes feminist capacity and provides four absolute women characters amplitude to be like absolute womenfallible, complicated, good, bad, and diverse. Furthermore, by accepting alone one Charlotte, alone one of the four capital characters who is absorbed and focused on alliance and motherhood, and by giving her a long, adamantine alley to biking in her adventure to apprehend those ambitions, Sex and the City privileges womens ability rather than assurance on mensomething that has not often been apparent on arrangement television.

The Concept of Have It All
The feminist movement in the United States and away was a amusing and political movement that approved to authorize adequate merit for women. The movement adapted the lives of abounding alone women and exerted a abstruse aftereffect aloft American association throughout the twentieth century. During the aboriginal two decades of the century, womens groups in the United States formed calm to win womens suffrage, culminating in the acceptance of a built-in alteration in 1920 that affirmed women the appropriate the vote. During the after twentieth century, womens groups would afresh bandage together, this time to codify and apostle for the Equal Rights Alteration (ERA). Though this proposed built-in alteration ultimately bootless to accretion approval in the backward 1970s, it became a ambulatory point for assorted womens groups and drew civic absorption to the feminist cause.

However, as women abutting the workforce they became added acquainted of their diff bread-and-butter and amusing status. Women who were homemakers, abounding with academy educations, began to clear their abridgement of claimed fulfillment.

Other contest in the United States, conspicuously the civilian rights movement, contributed to the acceleration of the feminist movement. During the aboriginal 1960s, the civilian rights movement aggregate momentum, aided by fresh anti-racist legislation, and accomplished a above ambition in 1964 with the access of the Civilian Rights Act. Abounding feminists interpreted the ban on ancestral discrimination, accustomed by the Civilian Rights Act, to administer to gender bigotry as well. The apprentice movement was additionally at its acme in the 1960s, arch abounding adolescent citizens to catechism acceptable amusing ethics and to beef adjoin American aggressive captivation in Vietnam. Feminist groups followed the archetype set by these movements, adopting the techniques of alertness raising, protests, demonstrations, and political lobbying in adjustment to added their own agenda.

The founding of the Civic Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966 apparent the accumulation of an official accumulation to represent and advance for womens concerns. Leaders such as Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem pressured politicians to become acquainted of womens apropos and to assignment on legislation that would advance the affection of womens lives. At the aforementioned time, abounding added organizations emerged to accord with feminist causes, including the Civic Abortion and Changeable Rights Activity League, Civic Displaced Homemakers, the aged womens movement, the Womens Equity Activity League, Women Organized for Employment, and Women Office Workers. In the aboriginal 1970s feminist leaders additionally accustomed a abundant affairs of proposed political and acknowledged reforms, and in 1975 the Civic Womens Calendar was presented to President Gerald Ford, all accompaniment governors, and all associates of Congress. In 1977, feminists organized a Civic Womens Conference in Houston, area they drafted an activity plan that included twenty-six resolutions the plan was after broadcast to government admiral to admonish them of their albatross to changeable constituents. NOW and the anew organized Civic Womens Political Caucus formed to access politicians and legislators while continuing their accomplishment to accumulate womens issues arresting in the media.

During the 1980s, American association was black by an added bourgeois political altitude and the feminist movement accomplished a backfire aural their ranks and from anti-feminist detractors. Feminism had consistently been criticized for actuality a predominantly white, upper class movement and for its abortion to abundantly accept and represent the apropos of poor, African-American, and Hispanic women. The movement had already splintered in the 1970s forth the curve of advanced feminists, who focused on the rights of women as individuals abolitionist feminists, who incumbent themselves with advocate groups, examination women as a blank chic of citizens and lesbians, who had been actual abundant a allotment of the aboriginal feminist movement, but now begin added in accepted with the gay liberation movement. Legislative assets accomplished in the 1970s.  In addition, some women who had subscribed to the credo of the feminist movement now accurate their anger at actuality abnormally labeled anti-male and bidding affliction at the accident of claimed aegis that acceptable womens roles offer.

Backlashes
No amount what anatomy it takes, however, one affair is clear the post-feminist movement is in abounding respects a formalized backfire adjoin feminism. The adverse affair is that the abstraction of post-feminism is ambrosial to women who dont apprehend its damaging effect. To many, the acceleration of post-feminism signals an apple in which feminism has been transcended, occluded, overcome, but to others it is still bright that theres assignment to do.

In a apple area women still accept yet to accomplish according pay for according work, still face animal violence, still abridgement according representation in government, business and college education, still try to accommodated absurd adorableness standards, still abridgement admission to affordable bloom affliction - it is absurd to say that feminism is dead. To do so would in aspect about-face actual efforts with the apocryphal blind of present day gender equality.

Unfortunately, assuming that there is an equation back in actuality it has yet to be accomplished is one of the affliction things a woman can do for the approaching of the womens rights movement.  Perhaps it is time to say post-feminism is asleep and feminism lives on.

Conclusion
Nevertheless, feminists apprenticed on, advancement burden on legislators to abode womens issues such as changeable rights, pay equity, acknowledging action, animal harassment, and the administration of abduction victims in the courts. In retrospect, the aboriginal 1960s has been termed the first wave of the feminist movement, and the activists of the 1970s and 1980s accept been alleged the second wave. In the 1990s there emerged a third wave of feminists, still anxious with abounding of the aforementioned problems as their predecessors, but now adulatory to assignment from aural the political and acknowledged establishments rather than criticizing them from the outside. This mostly adolescent bearing of feminists would additionally accent the charge to augment the ambit of feminism, emphasizing all-around networking, animal rights, common bread-and-butter justice, and issues pertaining to race, gender, and class.